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“Christianity is, I believe, about expanded life, heightened consciousness and achieving a new humanity. It is not about closed minds, supernatural interventions, a fallen creation, guilt, original sin or divine rescue. I am tired of seeing the Bible being used, as it has been throughout history, to legitimize slavery and segregation, to subdue women, to punish homosexuals, to justify war and to oppose family planning and birth control. That is a travesty which must be challenged and changed.” ~ John Shelby Spong, Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World

I posted just the first two sentences on Facebook recently. I did it because I had just read several other FB posts that seemed to me to represent the kind of “closed minds” Bishop Spong said were not a part of Christianity.

I heard from several folks supporting the position taken by the Bishop, and a couple of folks not supporting the position. All responses seemed to me to be thoughtful, responsible, and well-supported. How can that be?

How can it be that folks from the same faith can support opposing views on the same topic? Well, for one thing the opening sentence of the quote is not so much about faith, or A Faith, as it is about stuff we pretty much could all agree on as being nice goals for humanity. For another thing, the second sentence only vaguely touches on hard theological issues. So really, not much was at stake.

However, had I posted the rest of the above quote, then we would have gotten down to the nitty-gritty. Down to the stuff we really disagree on. Down to actually putting what we believe into the acts that we engage in, and into the causes and positions we support. Then there would have been some serious disagreements… maybe even some name-calling. Too bad that it gets to that point, I think; but very often it does.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1).  Or, as Eugene Peterson puts it, in The Message: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”

That’s where the discomfort starts: When something of God takes on flesh and moves into the neighborhood. The neighborhood gets a little creeped-out.  People take sides.  People take exception.  Sometimes people take off for other neighborhoods.  If you wanna start a good ol’ fashioned theological debate just point to where you see God taking on flesh in the neighborhood!